So within an hour I will be 29 years old. I have had a thousand and one conversations with Savannah about the futility of giving a fuck about this. The number, the plans and goals. In the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters is at 29 I have managed to surround myself with great friends, an amazing boyfriend and I have had some amazing moments with and without both. I have two sets of parents, and 3 out of 4 are beyond great. I have a good job…relatively speaking. I am in a good place financially…mostly. I have travelled a bit, I have read a lot. I have become an adult when I wasn’t looking. I try to be kind and thoughtful and even compassionate if the mood strikes me, but I suffer no fools. I am well known for my crankiness and my temper. Those who know me best know it’s just my hard candy shell and inside I will melt in your hand.

I smile a lot. So much so that strangers seem to find me friendly. I find this quite odd as I am also known for my perfect bitchface. I perfected it as a toddler.

You can literally hear my approximately three year old self saying, "bitch please".

Now this really doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of this post, but since when have my posts been cohesive or sensical? Bare with me. Bear with me? I don’t want you to be bare with me…but I don’t want you to get mauled by a bear with me, either. Bear it is though. I love you, but I don’t need to see your bits.

Carrying on.

Thursday night. Happy hour. The night was perfect and amazing and so many of my favorite (mostly work) people were there. But it was not without the usual l&c complications. Try as I may, leaving work at 4:30 was not happening. So I am sprinting to my car at 5:03 to try and make it from Suburbia to Downtown in rush hour. Kill me. MFEO calls me as I get in my car. I turn to look to see if I can back out, and some dude motions for me to rill my window down. This is where some of the above will make sense as a segue. I do and he asks me for directions. I give them to him. He then proceeds to try and start a conversation with me even though a – I am clearly on the phone and b – I am clearly exasperated as I am LATE…cardinal sin #1 in my book.

Dude: Hey, what dept do you work in?

Me: The awesome one* (I actually said the name of my dept)

Dude: Cool, do you like it?

Me: Um, yeah. It’s great. (Making the raised eyebrow face now that means you are annoying me. Stop.)

Dude: How long have you worked here?

Me: Seven years. (internal monologue: OMGSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!! MFEO on the phone: OMGHELLO!! I AM ON THE PHOOOONE!!)

Dude: Can I call you sometime?

Me: *dumbfounded* No. *rolls up window*

Ok, so I felt kind of like an asshole, but I also assumed the dude was playing 20 Questions because he was looking for a job at my company. Apparently I am THE ONLY ONE who thought THAT was a logical explanation. Everyone else is all “you got hit on in the parking lot!?” Either way, only I could have this happen. And seriously, WHO DOES THAT?

An even bigger, WHO DOES THAT goes to the dude I encountered after happy hour. I stayed out way past my bedtime. I was already cranky and I HATE parking garages. The one under Fountain Square requires you to pat at a kiosk before you leave the garage. So of course I get stuck behind the Hoosier who has no idea how this works. I see Napoleon Dynamite Jr stick his head out of his car and look back after struggling with the ticket reader for a few minutes. I give him the stink eye. He looks again and gets out of his car and starts walking towards me. My window is already down. Damnit.

ND: Do you have a credit card I can borrow?

Me: NO! (Seriously…what?)

ND: I didn’t know you had to pay before you left. I’m not a city dweller.

Me: Yep. You pay up on the Square.

ND: How do I get my ticket back?

Me: I don’t know. I don’t work here. (And I did it right, jackass.)

ND: I don’t know what to do.

Me: There’s a number on the sign, why don’t you call that? Oh look, here comes someone. Go ask him.

I then pulled into the other lane and was out lickety split because I am not a Hoosier and I can follow directions.

I had dinner on Friday with my oldest friend, Ms. Miami. She and Manfred proceed to explain to me how I’m kind of mean. And pretty much an asshole. I met her boyfriend when I was in Florida and he thought I was mean and Kitty was nice. I don’t know how that is even possible, but maybe I need to work on my personality. I mean, I know I’m an asshole. I have been from day one. But it’s mostly born out of stubbornness. Para example: The other night Martha and I did a painting class thing with her sister and mom. You go have drinks and paint a canvas while being offered some light instruction. Everyone is supposed to paint the same thing. HOWEVER. 1. The website said you could paint anything you wanted that was on the wall that inspired you. 2. The painting was SO UGLY.

Would you hang that in your house? That's what I thought.

I was not about to pay $35 to paint…that. So I picked a painting off the wall and did that instead. Martha strayed too, but she kept the same subject matter. So I was the lone dickhead in my class who didn’t paint “funky vase”. Does that make me a bad person? I don’t think so. As a consolation, my painting is somewhat wonky. I need to practice more. I lost the little talent I had built up.

My art-tastrophe is on the left.

So there’s that. But I think about it, and my personality has gotten me where I am in life. And yes, that may be Ohio, but it’s also gotten me some great stories and made me some priceless friends. So while I may have been perfecting the art of assholery for the past 29 years…I think it works for me. So, happy birthday you asshole. Here’s to another year of awesome.